Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Building a Better Future through Coercion and Trauma

It is interesting that our familiar anonymous troll took exception yesterday to my assertion that cultures are spontaneous orders and not "built."

I have to concede his point, because I can indeed think of several historical instances in which elites have attempted to build cultures from the top-down and outside-in. Conspicuous examples would include revolutionary France, the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, and currently, Iran and North Korea. None of these were or are spontaneous orders.

In fact, leftism of any kind necessarily involves this type of top-down indoctrination under godlessness, since the bitterly clinging masses are always addicted to some opiate of annoying and irrational tradition that interferes with Progress.

In order to create the -- hello! -- NewMan of the left, it is necessary to uproot religion and culture and eliminate sentimental allegiances to anything other than the revolution. Their zeitgeist town is not big enough for God and the State.

Coincidentally, I have become more vividly aware of this reality in reading the fascinating biography of John Paul II, since this was one of his deep principles, both before and after becoming Pope.

For example, having grown up in Poland, he knew that the Soviet Union could not have vanquished the Polish spirit in so short a time, since it takes generations to destroy a culture. The seeds of spiritual renewal were there. Someone just had to Water them from above.

But once a culture gone -- once the string is broken and there are no living embodiments of it -- there's no going back to it. Culture can be revived, but not resurrected. For example, the federal government can pretend that American Indian culture still exists, but it is no more. Guilt, I suppose. But all the guilt in the world won't bring it back. Once awake, you cannot resume the dream.

Having lived through it, I and millions of other Americans have been witness to the left's war on American culture. And when I say this, I am not attempting to be inflammatory or insulting.

Rather, I assume that any self-aware and intellectually honest leftist (now, now, let's be charitable) will acknowledge that he is at war with traditional American values, just as I am at war with the value system of the left, e.g. collectivism, moral relativism, materialism, etc.

To cite just one example, the left wants to redefine marriage, an institution that is not only older than the state -- any state -- but in a certain way coterminous (in the spiritual sense) with the very emergence of man. Man has always acknowledged the spiritually luminous complementarity of Man and Woman, and attempted to formally recognize its sanctity (to be sure, often in garbled, unjust, and perverse ways, fallen Man being what he is).

What made the American "revolution" unique is that it was not a revolution. Revolution implies a sharp and discontinuous break with the past, but ours was anything but.

Rather, it actually sought a deep continuity with the past. Americans wanted to live as they had always lived, only independent of an increasingly meddlesome crown. Thus, in an oxymoronic orthoparadox, it was a "conservative revolution." Conversely, there was nothing whatsoever conservative in, say, a Hitler, who was as radical a revolutionary as one could imagine.

Similarly, in modern times, Martin Luther King was the very opposite of a revolutionary. Rather, his whole program -- at least publicly -- involved holding America to account in honoring its first principles, both political and religious. Clearly, he did not want new principles, just full recognition of the existing ones.

The frontal attack on our liberal principles only came with the next generation of racial careerists, whose bright idea it was to impose government mandated racial discrimination, to generally obsess over race in exchange for cash and other valuable prizes, and to cynically use it as a bludgeon in order to beat their leftist values into the citizenry.

Dennis Prager often speaks of the "American trinity" of liberty, e pluribus unum, and "in God we trust." Not surprisingly, the same troller trash who wants to build a better culture explicitly rejects the Greco-Judeo-Christian principles upon which ours was founded. In his opinion "This country was founded on the principle that people of differing metaphysical beliefs could manage to coexist."

If this merely means that the state should not get involved in the imposition of culture, then of course we agree with him. But this not only contradicts his prior statement that cultures are "built," but the principle to which he alludes is a distinctly Judeo-Christian one of liberal tolerance -- which is why it specifically blossomed in our culture and not elsewhere.

By a wide margin, the writings of the Founders cite the Bible more than any other source. Their ideas were not rooted in Islamic values, or Buddhist values, or atheist values, or Marxian values, although, because of their Judeo-Christian prejudice, they believed that the personal conscience represented a sacred and inviolable limit to governmental power, because it is given by God, not the state.

But it never occurred to the Founders that the system they devised could be sustained if not rooted in the abiding principles upon which it was founded. Even someone as erratic and confused as Jefferson -- not coincidentally, a big fan of the French Revolution -- recognized this, for his lame "Jefferson Bible" still privileges the values of Jesus, if not the person.

Again, the left, in order to succeed, must vanquish genuine culture, which is always organic and rooted in transcendent principles that are "before the beginning." Thus, instead of liberty they cherish equality -- which is why, for example, they are obsessed with the idea that some people earn more money than they do.

Likewise, instead of e pluribus unum -- from many, one -- their value system promotes the balkanizing ethic of "diversity" and multiculturalism: instead of a sober One, an inebriated few too many.

And instead of "in God we trust" -- well, let's not belabor the obvious. Look at the commissars of NBC, who, just last weekend, removed the offensive "under God" from a video of children reciting the Pledge. This is at once trivial and profound, in that the left's concern with such trivia is a profound commentary on where their interests lie and then lie about it.

A couple of years ago the county of Los Angeles saw fit to spend millions of dollars -- which they do not have, but priorities are priorities -- to remove a tiny cross from the state seal of California, even though it had always been there as a spontaneous reference to the historical fact of the Christian missionaries who founded the state.

Frankly, no one even noticed it before these petty paranoiacs of the left broke out their magnifying glasses. But in their minds, there must be a sharp separation between religion and the state, or history, or education, or culture, or anything else. Religion must be ghettoized in order to limit its influence.

Consider the obnoxious group we discussed in yesterday's post, Psychologists for Social Responsibility. In order to eliminate our traditional culture and build a better one, it is necessary to start with children, for if they adopt leftist values early enough, they will never know what hit them. (It's a strong field, but their crazed take on Climate Change and Mental Health may win the prize for purple prose).

Thus, under the transparent pretext of Protecting the Children, their true agenda is to traumatize them with hysterical fantasies of THE EARTH IS ON FIRE AND WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! Thanks to these abusive activists, children are "among the most severely psychologically affected in a world of climate change and environmental unsustainability."

Here's an idea: why not stop frightening the children to begin with? Even if these fevered fantasies had some prospect of being true, I wouldn't want my child to know about them, for the same reason I don't want him to know about the Holocaust, or about lynching, or that his best friend's skin color is of any relevance, or that millions of Muslims would like to murder him.

Nor do I have to traumatize him with horror stories about what will happen to him if he ignores, say, gravity, since gravity is real.

What these child abusers really want to do is -- in their own words -- create little "socially engaged community activists" and "effective peacebuilders and agents of positive social change," codewords for the golden rule of the left: indoctrinate others as ye have been indoctrinated. The most effective way to reprogram someone is to traumatize them, which creates a fertile ground for the importation of mind parasites.

Similar to Soviet psychology, these tools want to reprogram people by helping them to "identify their cognitive errors about climate change and environmental degradation that prevent pro-environmental action," and force them to "feel despair and grief about our environmentally harmful actions and harness those feelings to motivate behavior change."

Above all else, people must not be permitted to think about the subject on their own, because they might come under the influence of those counter-revolutionary scientists who are enemies of the proletariat.

51 comments:

Yeah, it's really shameful how we've lost our traditional American culture. I sure miss those slave out back to do my work for me, and damn... how could women be trusted to vote? Well, at least we moved them Indians outta here before these radicals attacked our culture. What is America coming to? Our Manifest Destiny as white Christians is being destroyed by the Hispanics and Asians and non-whites that keep coming in. Thank God for the brave revolutionaries of our fraternal order in white sheets that marched against the building of that Catholic church they were tryng to build here in 1929. We all know that a Catholic church will bring with it Irish who will take our jobs....

Yes, our culture is under continous attack. As a regressive conservative, I long for the old days...

"Thus, instead of liberty they cherish equality -- which is why, for example, they are obsessed with the idea that some people make more money than they do. "

Nah. "Equality" is but a stalking horse for gaining power. No doubt ("there are many wonderful people on the left ..." -DP disclaimer) there are many who sincerely feel that they believe in equality. All this does is give cover to the power hungry.

Yes, Jefferson was sooo confused ... simply because he didn't believe what Bob believes. Forget that Jefferson studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy, French, Greek, violin and graduated college with highest honors. Forget that his peers entrused him to write the majority of one of America's most important documents, the Declaration of Independence. Amazing he could do that... being so confused. Regarding our early connections to religion...

The Declaration says nothing about our rights secured by Christianity. The Declaration states: “Governments are instituted among men.” The mentioning of God in the Declaration does not describe the God of Christianity. Thomas Jefferson who held deist beliefs, wrote the majority of the Declaration. The Declaration describes “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

Further, Thomas Jefferson wrote in Declaration that the power of the government is derived from the governed. Up until that time, it was claimed that kings ruled nations by the authority of God. The Declaration was a radical departure from the idea of divine authority.

NOTE: Thomas Jefferson’s original wording for the Declaration was: “All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable.” Congress changed that phrase, increasing its religious overtones: “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights”, thinking that would make a more convincing argument to the king.

Also, interesting to note the quotes from Jefferson on “common law”

“… the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.”– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Major John Cartwright, June 5, 1824

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.”– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814, responding to the claim that Christianity was part of the Common Law of England, as the United States Constitution defaults to the Common Law regarding matters that it does not address

Lets talk about how we build a better future through coercion. Lets talk about how such perceptions are ingrained. Lets talk about Fox News editor Bill Sammon who explicitly instructed his staff at your "fair and balanced' network to push the perception of Obama as a socialist, down play climate change science, and what ever other lies suited the conservative agenda. From the net work that brought you the "war on christmas' ... etc... and the perception that the blacks are coming to take what is yours, we see coercion in it's most disingenuous form.

How else could Americans en masse be so confused about the scientific consensus and other established facts?

The left's obsession with Fox reminds me of the Arab's obsession with Israel. 15 million Jews control a billion Muslims, just as a few million Fox viewers control 300 million Americans who are impervious to ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, the Times, the Post, the educational establishment, etc.

BTW, Abe Lincoln was hardly a leftist! Rather, a textbook conservative classical liberal. Nor were the racist Democrats who enforced Jim Crow "conservative," since, just as contemporary Democrats, they used the power of the state to enforce racial discrimination. The long alliance between northern and southern statists was hardly coincidental.

This is what we mean by top-down coercion and control: the banning of happy meals, circumcision, gold fish, circumcising goldfish, smoking, trans fats, salt, prayer, use of the word "niggardly," AGW skepticism...

But ban a child from wearing a tee shirt to school that says Blow Me? No way! Free speech!

"We hold these truths to be revealed after careful study by Ivy League-educated people, that all men are in need of constant care and supervision, that they are endowed by the highly-educated intellectual class with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are free Health Care, strict and expansive Regulations on all activities, and the pursuit of Big Government."

It is interesting that our familiar anonymous troll took exception yesterday to my assertion that cultures are spontaneous orders and not "built."

It is interesting how you start right off with a transparent lie, since you said nothing about "spontaneous orders" in yesterdays post.

It is also interesting how you accuse your opponents of "manichaeism" and then go off on false binary dichotomies yourself.

And it is also interesting how you privelege spontaneous order over conscious construction, since the latter is one of the things that distinguish man from animals. A termite mound is a product of spontaneous order, and while it is obviously built in some sense, it is also obviously not the product of conscious thought.

But the most interesting thing (as in, really interesting, not merely as evidence of intellectual bankruptcy) is that human culture is both built through conscious effort *and* a product of spontaneous order, since man is part of nature and nature is a spontaneous order. That is a central truth of human existence that you are stumbling over and ignoring.

Take for example something I guess you would approve of -- the Cathedral at Chartres. It was undeniably envisioned, designed, and constructed by human beings. Perhaps they were divinely inspired, perhaps not, it doesn't matter, it still involved human thought and human work. That's building culture, and so is your average rock band and so is professional organizations and political organizations and this blog as well.

Talk about confused and erratic. Culture is surely developed and transmitted via the human mind. And whatever the merits of medieval culture, I don't see any connection to modern and postmodern cultural Marxism.

Actually, anonChartres was an expression of a culture that already existed.Not a case of "if we build a cathedral, people will believe in God" but "since we believe in God, why don't we build a cathedral?"and make it a good one, too- since we're made in the image of the Creator.

Related: one of the major reasonable arguments in the debate over the Novus Ordo (O.F.) vs. the old Mass in Latin (E.F.) was that the OF had not developed organically. It was, unlike other forms grown over the centuries, "liturgy by committee".With predictable results.

Out of kindness, please- prayers for our wedding, which has become a mare's nest of hurt feelings, bad communications, unresolved conflicts, and spooky coincidences.Thanks, all.

Seems to me you want the state to enforce your definition of the word, "marriage", by not recognizing it between two people you don't think should be married.

It seems to me you should be fully supporting the rights of the private "commisars" of NBC to edit footage the way they choose.

It also seems that you shouldn't be interested in having a national pledge at all, but especially that such a pledge shouldn't have religious references. After all, that would be using the power of the state to interfere in religion.

Please. I don't want the state to enforce "my version" of marriage, but to recognize something that has always existed. In Judeo-Christian civilization there is only one form of marriage, which is why polygamy, homosexuality, father-daughter, brother-sister, and other deviations from the norm are not recognized.

And of course we support the right of NBC to edit footage the way they choose. What has that got to do with anything? And there is nothing whatsoever in the Constitution that bars the pledge. Rather, the state is not to interfere with the free expression of religion.

Wow. All I can say is, Wow. I feel vaguely prophetic today. The war seems to be picking up steam. People read the truth and prefer the lie.

The point is that a conservative "revolution" means returning to the founding principles, not switching principles. And not "fundamentally transforming" or referring to the Constitution as "fundamentally flawed". That is stupid. That you can cite violations of our founding principles does not mean they aren't good principles. What part of that is hard to understand?

"The atheist movement is a movement to establish a religion. They want control over what is in public view. No religion but theirs.

And sorry to say, but — once you start to ponder how everything got here, their religion is, indeed, a religion. It settles uncertainty by manufacturing certainty, on nothing more than blind faith. That’s as good a definition as any. And it applies, practically, as well. Ken Bronstein has a private view of the universe, what it is, how it got here, etc. and he’s upset because he’s seen a sign that someone, somewhere, believes something different. He’s exactly the kind of religious zealot from which the First Amendment is supposed to protect us."

Oh well, I see nobody here is likely to understand what I'm talking about. Big surprise.

I should just add that the apparently paradoxical and mysterious combination of the conscious and the animal in human beings is mirrored by the equally mysterious combination of human and divinity in Christ. So I would think that philsophically-inclined Christians would be able to appreciate it, rather than furiously denying it.

"A couple of years ago the county of Los Angeles saw fit to spend millions of dollars -- which they do not have, but priorities are priorities -- to remove a tiny cross from the state seal of California, even though it had always been there as a spontaneous reference to the historical fact of the Christian missionaries who founded the state."

Like their bro's the taliban who just had to blast the age old buddhist statues... Just gots to win the culture.

willian said "The Declaration describes “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”"

Exactly. Which means that Jefferson believed in a world we could have knowledge of, including human nature which gives rise to Natural Law, Property Rights and all those other pesky rights leftists would like nothing better than to eliminate.

So what's your point?

"...reasing its religious overtones: “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights”, thi..."

Julie, it isn't on the ballot either. Even under the new laws circumcision is allowed for adults.

"Other things" refers to the other things Bob included in his comment, such as circumcising goldfish, salt, and trans fats. That they were in his post is also why "I" bundled AGW skepticism and prayer.

With respect to negative consequences in a public school, you should be more specific. First, freedom of expression does not imply freedom of all consequences for that expression -- specifically, someone criticizing you. Teachers, as agents of government, *are* restricted from saying some things and will (or should) experience negative consequences from their employers for some expressions. They rarely suffer very much, though, and in many areas of the country there are no negative consequences at all.

"Right, because they are exactly the same."

Said with a sarcastic eye-roll, I'm sure, but cigarette smoke is fairly toxic. Blowing cigarette smoke into someone's face would be considered assault. So, your proposed difference is just that cigarette smoke doesn't kill you very quickly, so the state should have no authority to regulate it? If that's the case, why do they have the authority to regulate noise (or do you also believe noise regulations are invalid)?

"Other things" refers to the other things Bob included in his comment, such as circumcising goldfish, salt, and trans fats. That they were in his post is also why "I" bundled AGW skepticism and prayer.

You're right - sorry.

Julie, it isn't on the ballot either. Even under the new laws circumcision is allowed for adults.

As to the smoke issue, I fail to see what it has to do with noise ordinances. Further, though I'm a non-smoker I don't believe it should be micro-regulated the way that it is. Lots of things people do are dangerous, and potentially hazardous to others. If smoking should be regulated because of potential long-term consequences, why in God's name should driving be allowed?

Uh, Julie -- the state regulates driving, too. Hadn't you noticed? Or did you want to get rid of licensing requirements, safety requirements, and insurance requirements?

I'm not sure how Judaism is "outlawed" if consenting adults can be circumcised. If I moved to SF after this law is enacted and got circumcised (which would be fine, since I'm over 18), and converted to Judaism, I would be a legal Jew in SF.

There is a distinction between regulating as in driving and outright banning. When a private citizen may not light up in his own residence, that goes far beyond mere regulation.

As to circumcision, proponents of the law certainly have no qualms about expressing their anti-Semitism.

If you can't comprehend how preventing observant Jews from living according to one of their most sacred laws - which expressly states that male children must be circumcised on the 8th day of life - would outlaw Judaism, there really isn't anything more for me to say.

Releaed from gravity's possessive clutch,cathedrals spring--like Eve--from a rib, fullblown,beneath the sculptors' metamorphic touch tapping the pristine nature of the stone;evoking to the surface of its form the slow pulse of the mineral domainthe emblematic windows gently warmand bathe in the cryptic tinctures of their stain;wresting from rock the new cathedral's soula solid masonry will engineerinto a radiating aureole,tiara of the chapel's hemisphere,

blazing the nimbus of the curving apse with pyrotechnic flares the glass enwraps

LexAequitas said "...so the state should have no authority to regulate it? If that's the case, why do they have the authority to regulate noise (or do you also believe noise regulations are invalid)?"

Regulate smoking in (actual) public places? Yes. And yes on noise issues as well, and both follow from a proper recognition of property rights. But does the state have call to regulate smoking in private property? Nope.

There is a point of reference within this clip that is a reminder of two things -- the stretch of aspiration and what (Who) makes that possible (God). It points to the point of culture, the purpose of the feast that brings in the muses, to reference Josef Pieper.

To add to this clip the obvious - what is gold [versus hay] is eternal, never perishing. But that is kind of the point of it, I think.

So no eye contact, no humor, no flirting... that's pretty much all the stuff that made college enjoyable. May as well just take classes with University of Phoenix - there's probably more permissible social interaction.

I wonder what they'd say about using the school's free condoms for water balloon fights?

"The most effective way to reprogram someone is to traumatize them, which creates a fertile ground for the importation of mind parasites."

The fearmongering of the Left is only eclipsed by their envy n' bitterness.

In many ways those on the left remind me of those crackpots that keep predicting the time of the apocalypse only to change it when it doesn't hyappen.Hmm...actually the Left is just as crackpotty in their predictions...I mean computer models, which turn out to be false.

Both are false prophets, except the left is worse since they benefit from false profits.

BTW, Jefferson wasn't the only founder who was erratic. Most notably, Adams shared that trait. And Madison was practically bipolar in the 180 he did after the adoption of the Constitution. Washington was by far the most consistently sober and stable, which is why he was such a perfect ballast for the brilliant Hamilton, and why they were such an effective team.

And to say that Jefferson was at times erratic and confused takes away nothing from his genuine accomplishments. But let us be thankful that he wasn't our first or second president, and that most of his more radical and kooky ideas weren't enacted.

You seem to be confused about the nature of our confusion. Jefferson was a brilliant fellow, but he had, especially in younger years, a tendency to rationalism, to top down thinking, a Cartesian "If I can clearly and distinctly imagine it to be true, it must be so", but he wasn't so hard headed that he didn't adjust in light of experience. As with the French Revolution, at first his conception of it was all top down, as his " tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" comment. But as experience showed just how far from Liberty the frenchies had gone, he reversed course.

I'd bet that your supposed reverence for Jefferson hinges upon all of the selective quotations of his that tend towards his materialistic and rationalistic views, but I bet that you'd reject (assuming that you'd ever dare to actually read what Jefferson said on matters from start to finish... but the odds of that are probably astronomical) the quotations we could easily pull, where he expressed the opposite views. The way to dispel your confusion is to read him in context, rather than this pleasing snippet here, and that one there. Do that, and I've little wonder who would be the most confused about Jefferson; beware though, if you ever do actually read him in order to understand what he understood and believed, as opposed to reading him to confirm what you want to believe… cognitive dissonance awaits.

Should you actually have an intellectual spine, here’s an article Here's an article that might begin to lead you into dangerous territory,

"…This article will show that Jefferson regarded property as a natural right. As will become clear, all proto-socialist interpretations of his political doctrine stem from exactly the opposite assertion, i.e., that Jefferson did not consider property a natural right. Thus, what Jefferson actually thought about property rights becomes of crucial consequence, since it is the only path leading to his political doctrine; if the wrong direction is taken, his political theory becomes murky and unintelligible. The works that form part of the “revisionist” interpretation have very few textual footholds to grasp for support, as I will show. But the fact remains that they have been taken seriously in academic circles...

...It is germane to start with the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence in the form in which it was articulated by Jefferson: 'We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government laying it’s foundation on such principles and organising it’s powers in such forms, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.5'"(break)

(cont)But really, you'd be better off reading Jefferson himself, such as you'll find surrounding the following link. The bottom line is that those ideas where he was least confused, tended to be the ones which persisted with him, from youth to old age, such as with this:Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816

"The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management. Try by this, as a tally, every provision of our constitution, and see if it hangs directly on the will of the people. Reduce your legislature to a convenient number for full, but orderly discussion. Let every man who fights or pays, exercise his just and equal right in their election. Submit them to approbation or rejection at short intervals. Let the executive be chosen in the same way, and for the same term, by those whose agent he is to be; and leave no screen of a council behind which to skulk from responsibility. It has been thought that the people are not competent electors of judges learned in the law. But I do not know that this is true, and, if doubtful, we should follow principle. In this, as in many other elections, they would be guided by reputation, which would not err oftener, perhaps, than the present mode of appointment. In one State of the Union, at least, it has long been tried, and with the most satisfactory success. "

The more I read about the founders, the more I regard them as vessels of divine energies that far surpassed them, and unavoidably mingled with their own mind parasites. Hence the mixture of high and low, sublime and ridiculous, especially in the early years of the nation, when the constitution had to go from beautiful platonic abstraction to ugly political reality. That is when the mind parasites really came out to play. And this is why the sober Washington was the "indispensable man."

Gagdad said "And this is why the sober Washington was the "indispensable man."

Definitely. It would have come apart without him there to hold it all together; without his standing on the highground, an ideal in the flesh and visible and looked up to from all perspectives - even as they disagreed with him - the various golden calves would have led the factions astray.

No wonder we now have only 'Presidents Day'... even today he's still a problem for them.

True -- because it shows that Man is more important than ideas, and that the truth embodied therein surpasses the flat and narrow categories of the left. To have reverence for a Washington is to exile oneself from the left.

What About Bob?

Who's the dude that spirals down the celestial firepole on wings of slack, seizes the wheel of the cosmic bus, and abides in a bewilderness adventure of higher nondoodling? Who, haloed be his gnome, loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey? Who, with his doppelgägster and testy snideprick, Cousin Dupree, wields the pliers and blowtorch of fine insultainment for the ridicure of assouls? Who is the gentleman loaffeur who yoinks the sword from the stoned philosopher and shoves it in the breadbasket of metaphysical ignorance and tenure? Whose New Testavus for the Restavus blows the locked doors of the empyrean off their rusty old hinges and sheds a beam of intense darkness on the world enigma? Who is the Biggest Fakir of the Vertical Church of God Knows What, channeling the roaring torrent of 〇 into the feeble stream of cyberspace? Who is the masked pandit who lobs the first water balloon out the motel window at the annual Raccoon convention? Who is your nonlocal partner in disorganized crimethink? Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about bʘb! Then we can dig it!

Goround ZerO:

The Cosmic Area Rug:

The empty center is Beyond-Being. The circles are dimensions of Being. Your life is a path for the Spirit to pass from periphery to center. Thoughts and choices -- truth and virtue -- are the paving stones.

Only Error is Transmitted:

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Fuck You: War

Late last night, in search of light, I watched a ball of fire streak across the midnight sky. I watched it glow, then grow, then shrink, then sink into the silhouette of morning. As I watched it die, I said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a lot in common with that light.’ That’s right. I’m alive with the fire of my life, which streaks across my span of time and is seen by those who lift their eyes in search of light to help them though the long, dark night. --Nilsson

We see that yesterday is our birthday, today is our life, and tomorrow we are gone. So we have just one day to learn all we need to know, and that day is today. --Petey